Clearview AI Faces €30.5M Fine for Building Illegal Facial Recognition Database
Sep 04, 2024
GDPR / Privacy
The Dutch Data Protection Authority (Dutch DPA) has imposed a fine of €30.5 million ($33.7 million) against facial recognition firm Clearview AI for violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union (E.U.) by building an "illegal database with billions of photos of faces," including those of Dutch citizens. "Facial recognition is a highly intrusive technology that you cannot simply unleash on anyone in the world," Dutch DPA chairman Aleid Wolfsen said in a press statement. "If there is a photo of you on the Internet – and doesn't that apply to all of us? – then you can end up in the database of Clearview and be tracked. This is not a doom scenario from a scary film. Nor is it something that could only be done in China." Clearview AI has been in regulatory hot water across several countries, such as the U.K., Australia, France, and Italy, over its practice of scraping publicly available information on the internet to ...